About Last Night

I spent ten hours editing the Balanchine book today, then printed it out. I’m all done. I’ll be delivering it to Harcourt on Wednesday. I’ve never been so tired, and I still have those four pieces left to write (two of them tomorrow), but I’m done.

Thanks again for your forbearance, which I hope will last a little while longer while I finish cleaning my plate. Then I’ll start blogging again, and reading other blogs, too, something I’ve missed terribly in the past couple of weeks.

I look forward to serving you again!

Stunned by overwork, I made the mistake of peeking into my mailbox, where I found a hundred or so accumulated pieces of e-mail. Most of it was spam, of course, but I learned from quite a few of you that amazon.com just started shipping A Terry Teachout Reader, well in advance of the official publication date.

How about that? I’m published!

If you ordered the Teachout Reader in advance, your copy has either just arrived or is on its way to you. If you haven’t ordered it yet, go here and do so.

In addition, I got quite a bit of nice mail on various subjects (all of it answered–thanks very much).

I also got a rare piece of hate mail, which tickled me enough to pass on:

The main things that are unpleasant about your WSJ column are that you are relentlessly determined to show us how smart you are (not an elegant trait) and your poor white trash name (definitely not elegant).

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “Ah, me public!”

And now…back to overwork. See you tomorrow.

“‘Would you like a sandwich?’ she asked, offering a dejected-looking plate.”

Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence

I just finished the first draft of the Balanchine book. “First draft” is something of a misnomer, actually, since this draft is substantially polished. I’ll need another six or eight hours’ worth of close line-editing and sprinkling on a few pinches of magic dust, and then it’ll be ready to ship off to the publisher.

More as it happens, but now I need to get some sleep and start writing those other pieces, yikes!

In the meantime…yes, I’m happy. And relieved.

See you later today or, more likely, tomorrow.

Still crazy-busy over here, but I wanted to throw out this tidbit from James Wood’s latest New Republic review, a polite but firm taking-apart of John Le Carr

Over at Slate, one of last night’s three notable guest stars, Leon Wieseltier, is dishing but good on the cast members of “The Sopranos”:

My fleeting impressions, from a humble place at the table: Michael Imperioli is a talented sweetheart. Lorraine Bracco is a genuinely intelligent woman with the rare gift (these days, the almost unimaginable gift) of holding her eros in reserve. James Gandolfini is a completely authoritative actor whom I would not care to know. Even when he read his lines lightly in the run-through, he gave the lie to the maxim that nobody is indispensable. Peter Bogdanovich is risibly self-important. Steve Buscemi is unexpectedly comfortable in his febrile body and an extremely nice guy. (We went upstairs to wardrobe together, he for his shorts and me for my tux, except that I inadvertently wandered into the wardrobe room of Sex and the City, which made me think affectionately of Robespierre.)

In case you missed it, the other cameo guys included an actor, David Straitharn (as A.J.’s college counselor), and David Lee Roth (at the poker table).

A friend of mine went last night to see New York City Opera’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. As soon as she got home, she sent me this e-mail:

Something unexpected hit me close to the end of the second act, about the time all hell was breaking loose and the chorus was running around like mad singing “City on Fire”. Up til then, it was a pretty enjoyable show. Then all of a sudden, all the chaos on stage felt too real and I remembered how the Village was the night the World Trade Center was attacked – that horrible metallic burning smell and the air thick with smoke. And the madman onstage waving a razor, seething with vengeance made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t planning on that feeling so real.

That’s a memory I’m glad not to have.

I finished the fifth chapter and the bibliography of the Balanchine book late Saturday night. Come Sunday morning I start on the last one. I hate to tempt fate, but I do believe the end is in sight.

I’ll post another excerpt later today. In the meantime, kindly cross your fingers, please.